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The Early Signing Period is a great option, but not one that every player necessarily should take.
The inaugural Early Signing Period was good for recruits in many ways, including expanding their ability to choose. That’s something recruits sign away when they ink their national letters of intent.
But the Early Signing Period lets players shut the recruiting process down if they want to a few days before Christmas. It was a huge hit in its first year. But while it is good to have options, it’s fair to ask whether actually taking that early option is really the right one?
Teams want players to sign early.
A ton of players signed during the Early Signing Period last year.
Approximately 2,800 players sign letters of intent with college football programs each year. Roughly 2,000 of this recruiting cycle’s prospects signed between Dec. 20 and 22, the first-ever early signing period for college football under a rule change that NCAA leadership approved last summer.
Out of ESPN’s top 300 recruits, only 79 remained unsigned at the end of the December period.
It takes a lot of the drama out of February National Signing Day for pretty much everyone involved. Coaches will tell you this is good for them. It makes their life easier because the January recruiting period is now more targeted heading into February.
Hypothetically, let’s say you’re looking at a board of 100 players (just to use a round number). If 75 of them come off of that board, then you now not only know more acutely what you need, you know who specifically to target. It makes for a more focused sprint to the finish. And it helps players to continue to weed out which offers are real.
But it might be in the best interests of some players to hold out until February.
If you’re enrolling early, the Early Signing Period is tailor-made for you. That type of player is ready to roll onto campus about two weeks after the Early Signing Period, so it makes sense. But if you aren’t, then it may behoove you to see where the chips fall during the Early Signing Period, to make a more informed decision during February Signing Day.
There are plenty of players who have had their minds made up for quite a while or ones that are understandably pretty fed up with the recruiting process they’ve been apart of for two or three years, but there are some reasons why taking the month of January to survey the landscape, if possible, isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Players who wait will see how coaching changes play out.
For players considering teams with new leadership, or transitioning leadership, holding out might also make sense to see where coaching dominoes fall. Urban Meyer hinted that at least part of the reason why he chose to announce his retirement before the Rose Bowl had to do with the Early Signing Period.
The thing that really started to make things, when recruits started asking me, will you be here for four or five years. Recruits I’m very close with. And this early signing date has put pressure all over this world -- the college football world.
And the signing date’s coming up and that’s over 92 percent of the kids sign on that date. [Meyer was referring to OSU’s class specifically here]
Also, if you sign a scholarship and the coach decides to leave after that they’re free to go. So this was -- and people will say, why would you let recruiting get in the way. That’s a silly question. That’s the blood -- you want to have a good team you recruit. And you recruit very hard.
So that put a little push on it. And to be honest, I didn’t want to mislead recruits. Gene and I both felt -- not felt, we knew -- and that’s what made it now, the decision now.
The tradition of coaches leaving after Signing Day now happens earlier because of the Early Signing Period. The old bait-and-switch included coaches leaving in February after getting classes signed. Now, much of those musical chairs happen right after players sign early. And many have been in the works for weeks.
That’s the time players should take to evaluate where chips are falling if they’re not early enrollees, because while you may think players commit to the school and not the coach, it’s often the other way around. Coaches who leave jobs certainly aren’t telling the players they’re recruiting what’s going on before it actually happens. Just last year, 130 new FBS assistant coaching jobs opened up when every school was allowed to add a 10th assistant. That’s just more likelihood for professional churn while “amateurs” get and blindsided.
It puts players in a crappy position when the guy with whom they’ve formed a relationship bounces. A position coach is oftentimes the first conduit for a player and the broader coaching staff, and it’s the person you’re in the room most with on a day-to-day basis. An option for players who sign in December to designate an assistant, and if he leaves the binding Letter Of Intent is voided. That was considered, but not adopted.
And it’s not even about your coach leaving. If you’re a receiver, and the team you’re going to adds a second receivers coach, you should probably take a second to vet the guy. Small moves like that can have huge ramifications on a player’s life in college and career prospects.
There’s value in hearing the last ditch effort of a team. There’s value in taking some extra time to really get to know a new assistant during January to figure out if that’s really still where you want to go. There’s value in not making the decisions that the school going after you very much wants you to make just because it makes life easier.
It’s great to have choices, but for some, the prudent choice is to wait.